Ok, I know the WEDYHTD community is divided over Lance Armstrong. Heroic/national/athletic icon to some, sleezebag doper to others, tomayto, tomahto... but what about this:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/4749716.stm
So Sheryl and Lance break up and all of the sudden she's being treated for breast cancer? I realize this is all speculation, but they broke up THREE weeks ago... we're supposed to believe he didn't know about the cancer? He ditched his wife who nursed him though his own cancer recovery for Sheryl, then hit the road when the going got tough with her. Either Lance and his heart are pure but have the worst timing EVER... or he is the worst person EVER. We can all decide for ourselves...
PS. I think we need weekly updates on TomKitten since lords knows, I can't keep up.
Saturday, February 25, 2006
Friday, February 24, 2006
a shot at greatness
While perusing one of my favorite celebrity blogs this morning over a cup of coffee, i saw this:
And it occured to me, for once in my life, I actually could be equipped to compete in a world series! I mean, yeah, ok - its no Torino. But jeez, anyone who saw the ladies freestyle skating last night might concede that "greatness" isn't all that great. (cause dude, that girl so should not have won! did anyone else notice that she repeated the floaty-fish-arm-spin into single-arm-in-the-air-spin sequence 3 times!? it was like a skating version of a kylie minogue song. but i digress)
Anyways, maybe i'm just looking for an avenue to vent about ridiculous sucess of the fucking girls who ruled my middle school, but i think i could do this! i read like 3-8 celeb blogs a day, a fact which i never thought of as something to be proud of, let alone something to share with anyone, but for reals yo, i could DO this. i need teammates. who's with me?
ADDENDUM: I was so busy watching skating last night that i missed seeing becky get booted from American Idol. and yet, my dreams of greatness have not waned. the road to pop culture beckons....
"VH1 & ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY ARE HITTING THE ROAD LOOKING FOR
POP CULTURE TRIVIA FANS TO COMPETE IN THE
WORLD SERIES OF POP CULTURE!"
And it occured to me, for once in my life, I actually could be equipped to compete in a world series! I mean, yeah, ok - its no Torino. But jeez, anyone who saw the ladies freestyle skating last night might concede that "greatness" isn't all that great. (cause dude, that girl so should not have won! did anyone else notice that she repeated the floaty-fish-arm-spin into single-arm-in-the-air-spin sequence 3 times!? it was like a skating version of a kylie minogue song. but i digress)
Anyways, maybe i'm just looking for an avenue to vent about ridiculous sucess of the fucking girls who ruled my middle school, but i think i could do this! i read like 3-8 celeb blogs a day, a fact which i never thought of as something to be proud of, let alone something to share with anyone, but for reals yo, i could DO this. i need teammates. who's with me?
ADDENDUM: I was so busy watching skating last night that i missed seeing becky get booted from American Idol. and yet, my dreams of greatness have not waned. the road to pop culture beckons....
Free Money
I spoke to my brother Kevin on the phone for a while last night, and told him about this major fundraiser we’re planning at work and how I’m very anxious about it because it’s only nine days away and we’ve filled about a third of the seats in what is not even that big a hall in the first place. We haven’t had a problem getting donations, though. The money is pouring in. It’s just that no one seems to want to get anything back for it. In general in my work here, I’ve found that it’s a lot easier to get people to give money than to attend an event. The easiest way to bring in cash seems to be holding raffles—that way, people can send in their checks from afar without actually having to make time in their schedules to go to a concert or a dinner or whatever, feel good about themselves for supporting a great cause, and have a shot at maybe, just maybe, winning a Chivas Regal gift set or a NordicTrak machine or someone else’s frequent flier miles.
Kevin compared it to his reaction to the homeless people on the streets of San Francisco who try to sell you their newspapers for a dollar. He usually gives them a buck but tells them to keep the paper because he can’t even be bothered with going out of his way to the trash can to throw it out.
It’s probably a raising-a-family-in-the-city thing. The people who would most enjoy the benefit concert that we’re planning are parents who bring their musically-inclined kids. But those are the same people who think they are too busy to come out on a Monday night. So instead they send in a check and their good wishes and go about their daily routine of feeding the kids and making sure they do their homework and get a good night’s sleep.
I’ve given more money than I thought I would this year to various organizations and I’ve almost always received something in return: tote bags and iPod holders from WNYC (and maybe a laptop if by chance I win the special Apple drawing!), a concert at Madison Square Garden (and a glimpse of Bill Clinton) for Katrina victims, a performance of Beethoven’s 9th for earthquake victims, all I could drink at the Brooklyn Brewery for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Next weekend I'm going to a concert that will somehow benefit both New Orleans and Tibet. I like doing fun things for a good cause and when I don’t have time for that anymore because I’m responsible for other living beings, I’ll miss it.
More and more I feel little incentive to strive towards grown-up goals like having a family and investing money and buying a home. I just did my taxes and they were so easy, on account of owning nothing of value and being responsible for no one but myself.
Kevin compared it to his reaction to the homeless people on the streets of San Francisco who try to sell you their newspapers for a dollar. He usually gives them a buck but tells them to keep the paper because he can’t even be bothered with going out of his way to the trash can to throw it out.
It’s probably a raising-a-family-in-the-city thing. The people who would most enjoy the benefit concert that we’re planning are parents who bring their musically-inclined kids. But those are the same people who think they are too busy to come out on a Monday night. So instead they send in a check and their good wishes and go about their daily routine of feeding the kids and making sure they do their homework and get a good night’s sleep.
I’ve given more money than I thought I would this year to various organizations and I’ve almost always received something in return: tote bags and iPod holders from WNYC (and maybe a laptop if by chance I win the special Apple drawing!), a concert at Madison Square Garden (and a glimpse of Bill Clinton) for Katrina victims, a performance of Beethoven’s 9th for earthquake victims, all I could drink at the Brooklyn Brewery for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. Next weekend I'm going to a concert that will somehow benefit both New Orleans and Tibet. I like doing fun things for a good cause and when I don’t have time for that anymore because I’m responsible for other living beings, I’ll miss it.
More and more I feel little incentive to strive towards grown-up goals like having a family and investing money and buying a home. I just did my taxes and they were so easy, on account of owning nothing of value and being responsible for no one but myself.
Thursday, February 23, 2006
wasn't born yesterday
does anyone else remember a time when a snack-sized container of almonds didn't cost eight bucks. what is going on here? am i the only one who has noticed that the price of almonds (and cashews!) is out of control. are you embarrassed that i've posted this on our blog? have i jeopardized our legitimacy?
Wednesday, February 15, 2006
Loud and Clear, Big Guy
I am beginning to believe in a higher power. It wasn't the trip to Israel this month that did it, although the moment on shabbat looking out over the dome of the rock and the church of the holy sepulchre with the sound of the call to prayer drifting over the old city in stereo from mosques did make it seem like all of these people might know something I don't. But what turned me was the feeling lately that someone, somewhere was beginning to think I was feeling too cocky and I needed to be brought down a notch. Or, at an even more basic level-- that somebody has been paying attention. Examples from my recent existence:
In Israel I got in a yelling argument with someone on our trip, which let loose a self-righteous flood of rage that culminated in my bringing up the fact that he had spent the second day of the trip vomiting on the bus due to a vodka-drinking contest with a Russian the night before. Man, was I self-righteous. I spent most of the next day vomiting.
Also in Israel, I spoke with Juliet about how I felt like I really needed to experience heartbreak before I settle down with one person forever. Meanwhile, I spoke confidently about my relationship. I came home and within 24 hours had been dumped.
This fall, I had started to feel cocky about law school, like maybe at some level I was better than some schools. Or that I'd be considered a stronger candidate than the numbers suggest. And then those schools started to reject, wait-list and defer me.
There are other examples that don't come to mind right now, of me saying or thinking things only to be squarely contradicted by what seem like pointed changes in reality. Like someone is trying to tell me something.
The journal I'm using now I started on Valentine's Day 2004 and every page was filled ending last night, Valentine's Day 2006. I did a little personal retrospective on these past two years and more and more things seemed to be getting tied up, coming full circle; its all happening very cleanly. Not that breakups and arguments and rejection are clean, but it's falling into place like someone is planning this.
On the last day of the Israel trip, the dreamboat guide had us all write out postcards that he will mail to us, to send ourselves a little message about what we want ourselves to remember that we'd learned, realized or changes we intended to make. My postcard was about the realization that after being completely removed from everyday life for 10 days, I realized that my life is more than the sum of its components. After spending so much mental energy on relationships, jobs and law school, it was both freeing and terrifying to think about my life as being more than all of those things put together. And then I came home and a lot of those things shifted.
This whole weird, hard time brings a lot of maxims to mind-- be careful what you wish for, what goes around comes around, don't get too comfortable. It's weird. I don't know what's going on... but I'm putting it on the internet to say:
OK, I HEAR YOU.
Now if I could only figure out what they're trying to say...
I hope this doesn't mean I'm losing my mind.
In Israel I got in a yelling argument with someone on our trip, which let loose a self-righteous flood of rage that culminated in my bringing up the fact that he had spent the second day of the trip vomiting on the bus due to a vodka-drinking contest with a Russian the night before. Man, was I self-righteous. I spent most of the next day vomiting.
Also in Israel, I spoke with Juliet about how I felt like I really needed to experience heartbreak before I settle down with one person forever. Meanwhile, I spoke confidently about my relationship. I came home and within 24 hours had been dumped.
This fall, I had started to feel cocky about law school, like maybe at some level I was better than some schools. Or that I'd be considered a stronger candidate than the numbers suggest. And then those schools started to reject, wait-list and defer me.
There are other examples that don't come to mind right now, of me saying or thinking things only to be squarely contradicted by what seem like pointed changes in reality. Like someone is trying to tell me something.
The journal I'm using now I started on Valentine's Day 2004 and every page was filled ending last night, Valentine's Day 2006. I did a little personal retrospective on these past two years and more and more things seemed to be getting tied up, coming full circle; its all happening very cleanly. Not that breakups and arguments and rejection are clean, but it's falling into place like someone is planning this.
On the last day of the Israel trip, the dreamboat guide had us all write out postcards that he will mail to us, to send ourselves a little message about what we want ourselves to remember that we'd learned, realized or changes we intended to make. My postcard was about the realization that after being completely removed from everyday life for 10 days, I realized that my life is more than the sum of its components. After spending so much mental energy on relationships, jobs and law school, it was both freeing and terrifying to think about my life as being more than all of those things put together. And then I came home and a lot of those things shifted.
This whole weird, hard time brings a lot of maxims to mind-- be careful what you wish for, what goes around comes around, don't get too comfortable. It's weird. I don't know what's going on... but I'm putting it on the internet to say:
OK, I HEAR YOU.
Now if I could only figure out what they're trying to say...
I hope this doesn't mean I'm losing my mind.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
Floofy dresses, Prosthetic Boobs, Opera Singing Cabbies, and the Oakland PD, or "How I spent my Saturday Night"
So pretty much nothing about Saturday made any kind of sense. I started the day with Jessie in the sunny suburbs of the South Bay trying on ridiculous pink floofy bridesmaids dresses (my sister's getting married). From there we tootled to Julia's. We were starving but the bagels were off limits - what can you do? It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and it was 5 o'clock somewhere so we drove through the city loking for a cafe in which to drink bloodymary's. You would think that wouldn't be so hard, but hours later we were still driving, with no bloodymary's in sight. We decided to pull out all the stops and go to the Cliff House, which is a swanky staple of the San Francisco tourist scene. But its ma$$ive white columns made us keep driving to Louie's, which looked quaint but in fact was just totally bizzare. First of all, no bloodymarys. Then the waitress yelled at us for wanting to switch to an empty table away from the door. When i asked for a refill of diet coke, she told me that she had given me regular, so was i sure that i wanted diet this time? There was some sort of nasty plastic thing floating in Julia's water. nothing really went right. Since we had never really fulfilled the bloody mary craving, we decided to get swanked up and paint the town red.
After many stops for black slinky things we arrived in "Balboa Park" which i guess technically is part of the city but pretty much felt like another country to us. Jessie's friend was having a party which we thought was a "Vamps and Vixens" party, but in fact was a "Vamps and Vampires" party. quite different in fact. Her friend is a fabulous drag queen and many of the other people there were also very much in drag and lace and leather and prosthetic boobs. We meant to just stay for a drink and return to civilization but many french martini's later we were still there. A woman in a leather jumpsuit with a boat of a cadillac drove us to BART. which we missed. we got on a bus. i dont know what bus it was, but i think it was the wrong one. it was empty though and we didn't have to pay. Julia decided to get off. later she regretted her haste, as it was not the correct stop. Jessie and I got off too, somewhere, nowhere near her house, so we got in a cab. i was actually a van. with a woman driver who was so fabulously nice and who turned off the meter when i jumped out to get us pizza, which again i didn't have to pay for.
I loved this cab so much that i decided i couldn't leave it, i wanted my own bed, which was across the bridge in Oakland. but i was drunk and what is money to a drunk girl? So she took me. She was an opera singer and her favorite opera, Amal and the Night Visitors, was one that my mother took me to see every single year at chistmas. So she sang me arias and we ate pizza and talked and talked and then i was home. I put it on the credit card (which was a smarter move than i knew then) went inside and ate some more pizza.
Suddenly i heard gun shots. and i looked out the window and saw 3 or 4 guys running like crazy down the street. So i got out the phone book and called the cops. Which is something i feel like i do a lot for some reason, so it didn't feel that crazy. they said they'd send a car out. i said cool. so i finished my pizza and went to bed.
This morning, as i was dawdling and making myself late to work again, the phone rang. I normally don't answer my house phone but i did and it was the Cab Driver from saturday night, calling to tell me that she had filled out a crime report with the Oakland PD and they going to contact me and she was so glad i paid with a credit card because otherwise she'd never be able to find me again. and i was like, "oh my GOD - the gunshots!" and she said, "Yeah! I got away just in time!".... It turns out that when i went inside my house that night and she was pausing to do the paperwork for my ride, a bunch of guys started running at her shooting. she peeled away just in time and the bullets missed her and just hit the side of the van. She drove off for a couple of blocks until she called the cops but they were already on their way. So now i'm sitting here waiting for the cops to call and connect the dots.
crazy friggin night.
After many stops for black slinky things we arrived in "Balboa Park" which i guess technically is part of the city but pretty much felt like another country to us. Jessie's friend was having a party which we thought was a "Vamps and Vixens" party, but in fact was a "Vamps and Vampires" party. quite different in fact. Her friend is a fabulous drag queen and many of the other people there were also very much in drag and lace and leather and prosthetic boobs. We meant to just stay for a drink and return to civilization but many french martini's later we were still there. A woman in a leather jumpsuit with a boat of a cadillac drove us to BART. which we missed. we got on a bus. i dont know what bus it was, but i think it was the wrong one. it was empty though and we didn't have to pay. Julia decided to get off. later she regretted her haste, as it was not the correct stop. Jessie and I got off too, somewhere, nowhere near her house, so we got in a cab. i was actually a van. with a woman driver who was so fabulously nice and who turned off the meter when i jumped out to get us pizza, which again i didn't have to pay for.
I loved this cab so much that i decided i couldn't leave it, i wanted my own bed, which was across the bridge in Oakland. but i was drunk and what is money to a drunk girl? So she took me. She was an opera singer and her favorite opera, Amal and the Night Visitors, was one that my mother took me to see every single year at chistmas. So she sang me arias and we ate pizza and talked and talked and then i was home. I put it on the credit card (which was a smarter move than i knew then) went inside and ate some more pizza.
Suddenly i heard gun shots. and i looked out the window and saw 3 or 4 guys running like crazy down the street. So i got out the phone book and called the cops. Which is something i feel like i do a lot for some reason, so it didn't feel that crazy. they said they'd send a car out. i said cool. so i finished my pizza and went to bed.
This morning, as i was dawdling and making myself late to work again, the phone rang. I normally don't answer my house phone but i did and it was the Cab Driver from saturday night, calling to tell me that she had filled out a crime report with the Oakland PD and they going to contact me and she was so glad i paid with a credit card because otherwise she'd never be able to find me again. and i was like, "oh my GOD - the gunshots!" and she said, "Yeah! I got away just in time!".... It turns out that when i went inside my house that night and she was pausing to do the paperwork for my ride, a bunch of guys started running at her shooting. she peeled away just in time and the bullets missed her and just hit the side of the van. She drove off for a couple of blocks until she called the cops but they were already on their way. So now i'm sitting here waiting for the cops to call and connect the dots.
crazy friggin night.
Monday, February 13, 2006
Some Women
Nothing like a record-breaking snowstorm to separate the Vain and Superficial from the Just Plain Silly. I mean, really. If you look out the window before you get dressed in the morning, or in the event that you don't have a window or your window looks out on a brick wall you watch the local news or listen to the radio, you should have the sense not to wear your pointy-heeled boots to work. Otherwise you end up like a woman I saw coming out of the 72nd street station looking stumped because the only surface not covered in snow and ice was the grate with holes in it that would swallow up those long and skinny little heels. As Sarah suggested, "she's probably still standing there."
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